We Need More than Disaster Planning -- We Need Communities

"Hurricane Katrina and other substantial natural disasters of the past year...remind us that the physical world still has the power to crash our computerized, digitized, climate-controlled party. Our technology cannot always save us.

"But our neighbors just might. And, happily, we retain the power to shape and revise our communities...How do the growth patterns of our neighborhoods, towns and cities reinforce economic disparity? Make us more dependent on cheap fossil fuel? Irrevocably change the character of the land we depend upon? How do our individual preferences and conveniences make others’ lives more difficult, marginalized, poorer? How do the technologies we use increase our community’s susceptibility to chaos or hardship during times of crisis?"